Page 54 of Her Holiday Arrangement

Riley wiped at her cheek, furious to find it wet.

She sniffed, squared her shoulders, and made herself breathe.

She could do this. A few more days. Just until Christmas. Then she could leave this snow globe fantasy behind and never look back.

Never, except every time she closed her eyes.

The house was too loud.

Riley slipped her arms into the borrowed wool coat hanging by the back door and stepped outside without bothering to explain where she was going. No one noticed. Not with the cousins shouting over a game of charades and the adults comparing spiced cider recipes with tipsy laughter.

The screen door clicked softly behind her, muffled almost entirely by the thick hush of falling snow.

The cold kissed her cheeks at once, bracing, welcome. Her boots sank into the powder gathered along the stone patio. The snow had been falling steadily all day, and now the entire estate was blanketed in white, the trees heavy with it, their branches bending low as if in prayer.

It was peaceful here.

Still. Silent.

Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Riley stood just beneath the eaves, where the snow couldn’t quite reach, and let herself look out over the garden. The fairy lights strung through the arbor glowed faintly beneath a dusting of frost, and the stone bench where they’d once shared cider was now half-buried in white.

It felt like standing at the edge of something sacred. Or maybe at the edge of something lost.

She swallowed.

She hadn’t meant to fall for Elizabeth Hale.

It had been a job. A lie. A beautifully wrapped charade they were both in on.

Riley blinked hard, wiping her cheek with the back of her mitten. It came away damp. She clenched her jaw.

This wasn’t the plan. She wasn’t supposed to fall for the woman who could shut her out with a single glance. The woman who wore silence like armor. Who had spent the last twenty-four hours pretending that Riley didn’t matter.

But the worst part, the part that made her stomach twist, was that it hadn’t felt one-sided.

Riley had seen it. Felt it. In every moment Elizabeth’s mask slipped, in the warmth behind her eyes, in the way she touched Riley when she thought no one was looking.

So why did she keep running?

Why did she keep pretending this was nothing?

Riley breathed in the cold, the scent of pine and frost curling in her lungs.

And then, quiet footsteps behind her.

She turned.

Elizabeth was there.

She stood at the edge of the patio, bundled in a long charcoal wool coat, hair tucked into a loose twist, a dusting of snow catching on her lashes. In her gloved hands, she held two steaming mugs of cocoa.

Riley froze, heart thudding.

Elizabeth didn’t speak right away. She stepped forward, her boots crunching softly on the cleared stone. She stopped a few feet away, like she wasn’t sure if she should come closer.

“I thought you might be cold,” Elizabeth said quietly, offering her one of the mugs.